No Indian meal is complete without a flavorful rice dish. Try this delicious recipe for Mushroom Pulao, made with fragrant Basmati Rice and caramelized mushrooms. Serve it with raita, plain yogurt or a side salad…Wow!

1. Bring Water to a boil in a sauce pan with a lid and turn off the stove.
2. Add Salt and Lemon/Lime Juice and stir.
3. Add sliced Mushrooms, stir, cover and allow to steep while working on the rest of the process (about 15 mins)
4. Heat Oil in a non-stick pan with a cover.
5. Add Bay Leaf, Cinnamon Stick, Green Cardamom and Cloves. Cook for 30 seconds.
6. Add Cumin Seeds and allow them to sizzle.
7. Add Onions and cook for 1-2 minutes until translucent.
8. Add Ginger and Garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes.
9. Strain and reserve liquid from Mushrooms.
10. Add strained Mushrooms to the pan and cook until Mushrooms are golden brown and caramelized.
11. Drain water from the rice and add soaked rice to the pan.
12. Add Garam Masala and Red Chili Powder.
13. Mix well and cook for 1 minute until Rice is coated with the oil and spices.
14. Add Green Peas and Bell Pepper and mix well.
15. Time to add in Mushroom Water (broth) to the pan and allow it to come to a boil, uncovered.
16. Cover the pan, reduce the stove to a low (simmer) and set timer for 15 minutes. Do not open the pan or stir in between.
17. After 15 minutes, turn off stove and fluff the pulao with a fork to loosen all of the grains.
18. Cover again and allow the pulao to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
19. Serve hot with Raita, plain yogurt and/or salad.

Hie,
Now the video is working thanks!
You guys are looking so pretty in the video!! Easy recipe too!
Just tried the veg biriyani today….turned out awesome!
Thanks for the wonderful recipes…keep posting
One request-please post some tasty diet food…you guys can make anything tasty!I tried out the daliya and khus khus salads and they were awesome! even my husband liked them..

Thanks, it’s working now. Such a colorful dish! Thanks, I did not know how to steep the mushrooms with salt and lemon juice. With your videos, we always get to learn something new.
Can u please let me know where I can get the wooden roti/garlic press which you used in the tilgul recipe. Thanks.

Hi Shrikanth,
We use Red Chilli powder as both of us like our food a little on the spicy side but if you prefer not to, by all means use Cayanne pepper, which is more for color. For this recipe, you can skip it altogether

Just to clarify: in the US, cayenne is the spicy, ground pepper. Chili powder is mostly paprika with other spices used for Tex-Mex style chili. I had a friend visiting from India, and after several amusing minutes in the kitchen (she was teaching me to make Chhole!) we realized that what she called chili powder was what I called cayenne.

If you buy cayenne in an Indian grocer, it will say chili powder. Otherwise, look for cayenne.

“Fresh mushrooms have a firm texture. They are delicate, highly perishable, and must be handled with care; they are sensitive to hot temperatures and rough shipping. Many varieties of fresh mushrooms are seasonal. Watch out for mushrooms that are moldy or soft. You are looking for them to be clean and firm.

awesome recipe.I love mushrooms and I make similar to this.However, lemon juice salt with mushrooms was new to me..Cant believe we are actually making a delicious dish out of a fungus..;) Will definitely give it a try soon..Thanks guys..Great work..

I remember in High school my Pakistani friend made a Pulao dish but it had peas, carrots, and cashews (probably had some more veggies in it) and it was really good. I tried cooking with Cashew but it never turned out right. at least looking at this it gives me an idea how to go about preparing a good Pulao dish.

this jus looks so fabolous i cannot wait to try to it.. can you clarify is mushroom a vegeterian or non vegeterian because some say its a non veg… iam asking this because iam a strict vegeterian… do confirm this factor alone.

Hi Shobana,
Well, Mushroom is a fungus and grows from soil (like other vegetables) so we would definitely classify it as a vegetarian item. According to us (personal opinion), anything that was moving and living or going to live would be “non-vegetarian”.
Having said that, we suggest you make the decision and do what you feel is right

Ah .. so many recipes .. haven’t been seeing them for a month .. was off on a holiday to India .. where to start .. this pulao i suppose …. and the mousse .. minus mangoes .. ha ha … will the canned mushrooms taste this nice .. ’cause I have found that it never loses its texture even after cooking …??

Hi Sahna,
“Fresh mushrooms have a firm texture. They are delicate, highly perishable, and must be handled with care; they are sensitive to hot temperatures and rough shipping. Many varieties of fresh mushrooms are seasonal. Watch out for mushrooms that are moldy or soft. You are looking for them to be clean and firm.

Regarding, cleaning, you can either wipe them clean with a moist paper towel or wash them and them wipe them dry before using them. Every part of the mushroom can be used, just chop off the end of the stem so you get a clean line

I had some mushrooms in my fridge and was looking for a good way to use them when I stumbled upon this recipe. But, after all the prep work I did, I realized the mushrooms had gone bad. So, I made the pulao without mushrooms and increased the amount of bell peppers. It was really yummy. Next time, I will have to try it with mushrooms.

I regularly watch your recipes and love them all. You both are doing a fab job.

Only comment is that, can you please refrain yourselves from lengthy talks. Its really difficult to watch your videos for so long. Do take it as a healthy comment rather. Rest as I said, I really enjoy your work and ofcourse your cooking. You guys rock !!!!

have tried most of ur recipes,all were delish,but tried mashroom pulao today,was a disaster:(,actually i did not have basmati rice so i used regular sona massuri rice( double the measurement) & i did not soak it,cooked 50% in microwave to make it faster,it was all mushy, i know i messed it up big time,can u plz give the measurement for regular rice & the method of cooking it,if basmati not available,plz help

Sorry to hear about your disaster :(. Unfortunately, any pulao or biryani recipe requires Basmati Rice if you want the desirable texture. Some recipes allow you to change them without any major effect on the outcome, however, you changed the cooking process quite a bit with this recipe. If you cannot get Basmati Rice, maybe you can try a small batch with your rice but follow all of the recipe steps exactly — if not the best, you may get better results than this time.

yes did ussee basmati and dd cover…but maybe iM just not used to cooking rice on the stove…I always do it in the rice cooker….
I retried ur recipe in the rice cooker and voila….an excellent meAL
looking forward to the many more recipes to come….
love
asha

Hi Hetal & Anuja,
I bought some fresh mushroom hoping to try this recipe, but i left it in the fridge for a week & then when I tried to clean it using wet paper towels it just seemed to peel off/ turn mush & was quite smelly. I threw it out simply because I didn’t know if it was good. Can you please do a tip video on how to clean/ buy good mushrooms? ( I don’t know how to coz my mom never bought/ made them.
Thank you for all the tips & recipes; it’s a treasure trove for a new bride learning to cook!

Provided your daughter is used to the flavors and “spiciness” of ginger/garlic/onions, this is a wonderful dish for her. The only two ingredients you need to watch out for are the Garam Masala and the Red Chili Powder. You can easily leave those out and make it kid friendly.

Oh, man. I don’t know WHAT I did, but this is HOT. SPICY, SPICY, HOT. I could barely eat it. My lips are still burning. What did I do wrong?? (Except I forgot to leave out the Garam Masala and Red Chili Powder. Is it supposed to be that hot, naturally?) So sad!

hetal Reply:October 21st, 2010 at 2:59 pm

Oh no! Sorry to hear that Jes :(.

Believe it or not, to the untrained (for Indian food) palate, the garam masala and red chili powder really do make a significant difference in the spice level. Other than those two ingredients, nothing else is really spicy. Ginger and garlic do contribute a bit to the spice level but its not significant.

I just made this dish for lunch today, this was the FIRST EVER DISH I had ever cooked in my life (I just started flatting) and I made it exactly the way you guys did. It came soo well, I’m so thrilled!! I had to come back and write to you! Thank you soo much!!! Yay!!

Hi,just made your mushroom rice.Taste was very good.However,the rice was just slightly undercooked and i was hoping the grains would come out seperate but that didnt happen .I put the required quantity of water.Will try this again soon .Tks great recipe

Hello ladies,
I am planning to make this for a potluck for later this week. As you guys have suggested to some previous posters, I am going to reduce(halve maybe?) the quantity of garam masala and red chilli powder taking into consideration the gentle American palate. My Indian tongue is going to need a lot of convincing though cuz I would usually do a little more than you guys recommend! Raita for them and pickle for me I guess

Maybe you can just reduce the red chili powder instead of garam masala. Garam masala is a key flavor addition to this recipe and will not add too much “spiciness”. Good luck with it and let us know how it comes out.

This is me learning from my mistakes. I forgot to buy basmati rice and only had broken jasmine rice. To make matters worse, I added more than a cup of broth to the rice mix. The dish was doomed to be a little mushy. However, the flavor was there…very strong. Maybe 1 tsp of red chili powder was too much. I’d like to make a suggestion. I’m very much a beginner (see above), and I have no idea how much spice to add to taste. Please give some minimum amount (maybe determine this from what a typical white American palate would handle?).

Sorry to hear about your rice :(. There really is no way for us to give a guideline when it comes to salt or chili powder. The main reason is that chili powder comes in so many levels of spiciness that we cannot know what our viewers will be using. Hopefully, you now know the spice level of your chili powder and can adjust accordingly in the next recipe. Good luck

I’ve just followed your recipe to the letter, but used a few squirts of ‘Frylight’ low fat cooking oil instead of the oil as I’m on a diet. As there was little oil I fried the spices slowly and kept moving them around so they wouldn’t burn. Once you put the onions in you can give another couple of squirts and frying worries are over. The mushrooms brown quite well in spite of the lack of oil.

Anyway the final result was absolutely fantastic and I shall make it again and again. The red and green colours really do make the dish, so well done to both of you for a great recipe.

By the spelling of the word colour you can see I’m from the UK – London